The Final Frontier

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The Final Frontier

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As graveyards go, an aircraft could do a lot worse. The new branch of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum is beautiful, spacious, and packed with distractions for visitors. The 760,000-square-foot center, located in northern Virginia at Washington Dulles Airport, will eventually house hundreds of retired craft such as the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress and the shuttle Enterprise. Many are suspended from the rafters of the main hangar like model airplanes in an adolescent's bedroom. There's also an IMAX theater, the Mobile Quarantine Facility - constructed in case Apollo astronauts brought moon germs back home - and a 164-foot observation tower with a mock air-traffic control center. Congress balked at the facility's $311 million price tag, so the museum relied almost entirely on private funds. Aviation entrepreneur Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, who made his money as the founder of International Lease Finance, won naming rights with a $65 million donation.